


climb inside my skin

by chocobos



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Bookstore, Ian is very thinky in this I apologize, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-26
Updated: 2013-04-26
Packaged: 2017-12-09 14:18:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/775169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chocobos/pseuds/chocobos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ian didn’t know <i>he</i> was back, but he decides to bother Mandy into telling him why she didn't bother to tell him in the first place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	climb inside my skin

**Author's Note:**

> Yay, shiny new fandom! \o/
> 
> I've been _slaving_ over this fic for WEEKS, and I'm not completely happy with it, I'm still slaving over whether or not it's OOC and I'm afraid it doesn't make sense, so I apologize if this chapter comes off super choppy in some (or all) areas. I can't look at this thing anymore haha.
> 
> I hope you guys enjoy this, though! I know Mickey seems pretty soft, here, and I'm sorry about that, but he's also about 21/22 here, too, so I feel like there's a chance he would soften a bit. But, that's just my interpretation.
> 
> OKAY ENOUGH WITH THE LONG AUTHOR'S NOTE. ENJOY THIS. Feel free to give me feedback if you so choose! This is my first fic in this fandom so I'm feeling super nervous about it. 
> 
> Chapter count is just a projection. It's subject to change at any time!

Ian takes the job from Kev because he’s broke--he’s always broke, though, never has enough money for food or rent or the electric bill and he’s swimming in enough student loans and grants by now that he thinks he should probably invest in some deep-water diving equipment so he doesn’t, you know, suffocate in the amount of money he owes.

 _Not_ because he’s always wanted to go deep-water diving or anything.

(Even though he does. Want to go, he means. It’d be thrilling and the only large body of water Ian has ever seen is Lake Michigan when he and Lip stole a car one summer and drove for hours. They ended up at a lake, smoking more joints than necessary and waxing poetic bullshit about the water and how the sun looked when it reflected against it’s surface. They got caught, of _course_ they got caught, but it was worth it.)

Ian takes the job from Kev because he's poor college student who helps Fiona support his younger siblings, and not at all because there's a secret part of him that loves reading books (though there is; a buried deep secret part who used to spend his childhood scoping out abandoned bookshops and second-hand stores; ironically enough, they were the first place he stole something from, too, a copy of  _To Kill a Mockingbird_ that Ian still has shoved under his bed in a box).

It's not a shitty job, either. The people are nice; well, they're as nice as Southside gets, at least, and they're eager, too. Eager to learn and to read and as much as Ian wants to deny it, as much as he _wishes_ he could, it's infectious. He may or may not have a pile of books sitting behind the front counter that he hasn't taken home yet.

Kev gives Ian more hours than he should, though. He's a family friend that Ian can't remember not having around and understands that if Ian doesn't have a baseline 40-hour work week, then Fiona will have to work  _double_ the double she's already working. It's more than Ian could- _-_ would--ask for, even with his generous course-load this semester.

He isn't complaining. 

Ian doesn't complain. He just does.

Fiona doesn’t approve, but Ian doesn’t care enough to cut back. They need the money for food and he knows that without all of the extra shifts he’s taking they would barely be getting by the skin of their teeth--he chooses to ignore the fact that they kind of already are, now with it only being Fiona and Ian bringing in a dependable flow of cash. And with the amount of shit Carl breaks on a weekly basis, it’s smart to keep at least a few extra twenties in the squirrel fund at all times, just in case he ruins something again (last week it was the toaster. Debbie was livid enough that she made Carl scrounge up the money from neighborhood kids after school; Ian sleeps better not knowing what exactly the little psychopath got himself into with that one, really).

He’s thinking about the book inventory he still has to do twenty minutes before closing--Ian is a fucking master procrastinator--when the bell chimes above the door and a guy in dirty clothes and an even filthier face walks in.

He looks suspicious--and lost, but mostly suspicious--this is the southside of Chicago, though, so that goes for just about everyone.

“Can I help you?” Ian asks. He ignores the way his fingers twitch toward the phone and he shoves them into his jacket in an attempt to hide it.

The guy looks up, eyes-wide with something that Ian thinks might be panic, before he relaxes slightly and gestures towards the phone by Ian’s elbow. Ian resists the very real urge to hide the phone away from him.

“The phone available?” He sounds angry. Ian thinks he probably has the type of voice that always sounds angry, so he shrugs and hands the phone over to the guy.

His fingers are covered in a thick layer of grime, but they’re warm and calloused where they brush against Ian’s own, and Ian thinks he can see the inklings of a tattoo peeking out beneath the frayed fabric of his gloves, as jagged and raw as the cotton covering them. He stomps real quick on the to try and look at them a little more closely and snaps his gaze back to the guy’s face.

He’s looking at Ian--of course he is--with an expression that Ian can’t decipher. He’s not sure if he exactly wants to, either. He's dangerous, Ian can tell that just by the way he holds himself, could tell from the way his eyes immediately danced around the room when he first walked in, staking out any possible threats.

“Payphone not working?” Ian asks. The payphone is never working. The local gangs think it’s their personal duty to destroy them as soon as someone makes their way out here to fix the fucking things again. Ian’s waiting for them to eventually stop trying.

Everyone does.

It’s Southside.

The guy doesn’t answer, just waves a hand in Ian’s general direction that _vaguely_ looks like a middle finger and grunts angrily into the phone, speaking in low tones, probably so Ian can’t try and eavesdrop.

Instead--it's really hard not to eavesdrop anyway, because Ian's always been a curious type of guy, and the whole lack-of-subtly thing on this guy's part is doing nothing to ease that--Ian busies himself with walking around the store to put books haphazardly dropped on the floor by customers who were too lazy to pick them up back on the shelves and spends a couple of minutes reorganizing the fantasy section--why people feel the need to put _Harry Potter_ next to the _His Dark Materials_ series is something he’ll never understand. He'll applaud it, because both are fucking amazing, but he doesn't understand it. He doesn’t even pretend to worry about the guy trying to rob him dry, because Ian took all of the money aside from a few fives to back safe fifteen minutes ago.

He isn’t fucking stupid.

“Thanks, Firecrotch.”

Ian jumps fifty feet in the air and resolutely ignores the insult. He can feel the back of his neck and the tips of his ears burn bright, crimson pink though, and shoves the last book onto the shelf with a little more force than necessary. He turns around to find the guy smirking at him, even though it’s faint and could just be the trick of the lights--it’s happened before, okay, though he was also high when that happened, too. So, maybe not.

“S’not a problem,” Ian shrugs him off, and walks around him back to the front counter.

The phone is exactly where it was before Ian handed it over, and he feels his heart thud at the thought that the guy put it back exactly where it was.

The guy just nods at him and leaves. He watches him, unable to help himself really, watches as he pulls up the hood of his jacket and walks against the cold. Ian locks the door behind him, because it’s only ten minutes from closing, now, and Kev won’t mind if he closes up shop a little early.

It’s inventory night.

*

It’s only when Ian’s walking home that he realizes the guy was Mickey Milkovich, his best friend’s older brother and the kid Ian used to play with in the dirt piles beneath the L-track when they were kids.

Ian didn’t know he was back, but he decides to bother Mandy into telling him why she didn't bother to tell him.

*

The house is quiet when Ian gets home--he made a quick stop at the local 24-hour market to kill some time so he didn’t have to go home to one of Fiona’s looks, the look she gives him when he pushes himself too hard and works too many hours, like she’s expecting him to collapse in a fit of melodramatic, teenage-angst bullshit. He won’t, of course, but Fiona never believes him, and he’s tired of wasting his breath trying to convince her of it. He knows she means well, Fiona always means well, but he thinks if he has to see another one of them, he will physically throw himself through a wall. Possibly even through to the pits of hell, if he’s inspired enough, and if he can find a legitimate way to get there.

He’s been coming home late and leaving early enough in the morning to miss breakfast. Fiona still hasn’t cornered him about it, but that’s most likely because she just hasn’t had the opportunity, and Ian is under no impression that it’s not going to happen eventually.

He’s just choosing to extend ‘eventually’ as far as he can get away with.

He puts his backpack by the door as quietly as he can, peels off his shoes, and grabs a bottle of beer from the fridge. He's careful not to let the door slam, because Fiona is a surprisingly light sleeper when she wants to be.

Which is always, for her.

With three kids under sixteen in the house she kind of has to be.

“Who’re you trying to sneak past?”

Ian jumps out of his his skin (again) and looks somewhat guiltily at Fiona. She’s leaning against the wall with a smug expression on her face, hair tied back into a messy bun, stray strands are sticking to her face, and even with all of that, Ian doesn’t think he’s ever seen his sister look more beautiful.

He doesn’t tell her that, of course, because she’d punch him in the face for getting all corny on her, in the kitchen of all places (“God, Ian, we eat in here, you’ll pollute the food,”) and tries to smile at her.

“I didn’t want to wake anyone up.”

It sounds lame, even to him.

“You didn’t want to wake anyone up, or you didn’t want to wake _someone_ up?”

Ian sighs. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

He’s not admitting defeat, no matter how many times Fiona tries to puppy-dog eye him.

He’s immune, by now.

Well, he hopes he is. It’s been twenty years, it’d be pathetic if he wasn’t.

“Why have you been avoiding me lately, Ian?” Fiona asks, and she doesn’t sound hurt or upset or angry, she just sounds curious.

“I haven’t been.” Deny, deny, deny.

“My ass you haven’t been avoiding me, kid,” Fiona says on a laugh and steps closer to him. “You wanna try telling me the truth now?”

“School’s been sort of rough,” Ian admits, and it’s not even a complete lie. School has been rough--school has _always_ been rough for Ian, though; it's never been something that just clicked with him. He’s always had trouble keeping grades, and it used to bother him, that he wasn’t as smart as some of his classmates obviously were--are, but he makes up for it all in dedication, he thinks, so it’s probably not that big of a deal, really.

When he slips out the door in the early mornings, it’s usually to sneak into the Milkovich’s house to study with mandy, or to meet Mandy at one of the outside benches on campus, pouring over lecture notes with a joint in hand. On the rare occasions, when Mandy is unavailable or unmotivated, he’ll even plop down on a random street corner to study.

He’s not crazy intelligent like Lip, or irresistibly charming like Debbie, and he wasn’t athletic enough to get a scholarship like Carl inevitably will get. He’s just Ian, decent enough to not be a complete waste of space (Frank’s exact words; Ian can quote him on that).

She sighs, in defeat, obviously realizing she’s not about to get the whole truth. “I told you to cut back your hours,” she says. “I don’t know why Kev gives you so many of them. He knows your workload this semester, I make _sure_ he knows your workload.”

“Because I ask him to,” Ian offers, “And because I’m one of his only workers competent enough to run the store without him.”

She rolls her eyes, but looks at him with softer eyes. “Just be careful, ‘lright, kid?”

“You know I will,” Ian says, and from Ian, it’s practically a promise.

He's always careful. 

Fiona looks over at him, and smiles, that little half-smile she gets sometimes, when Liam took his first step and when Carl received his first award for not blowing something up. It makes him feel guilty and light all at once. “I’d just wish you’d stop working yourself so hard. I mean it, Ian, you’re going to burn yourself out.”

Ian just smiles at her, though, ignoring how heavy his chest feels all of the sudden and drops a kiss on her forehead as he takes for the stairs. “Can’t, Fi,” he whispers. “I’ve got to help pay the bills somehow.”

She stays silent, probably because she knows he’s right.

*

He stays for breakfast the next morning. It’s nothing like a peace offering in the way that it totally is one.

He’s not sure if he’s trying to prove something to himself, or to Fiona, or maybe he’s just gone too long without it, without the usual air of chaos that seems to swallow the Gallagher household constantly, but he makes sure Fiona sees him in the morning. He knows it’s petty, caring this much that his sister sees him not actively avoiding her--even though he totally is, because Fiona is meddling and dangerous, and she’d probably blackmail him into not working himself so hard if she truly found out how much he _actually_ works. But Ian likes it, he likes the bone-deep exhaustion he feels after he finishes an eight-hour shift on top of the morning Psychology 101 course he takes, he likes the way he falls asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow after working doubles on Saturday, he likes the way his muscles cramp up after a long day, too.

He likes all of it.

He feels like he’s doing something; like he’s actually helping.

“Hey, delinquent,” Ian says, ruffling Carl’s hair. It’s longer than Ian’s ever seen it and it makes him pause. “You need a haircut.”

“You need a haircut,” Carl snaps back, and then smoothes out his hair. “The ladies dig my hair like this.”

“Right,” Ian says, just to placate him.

“I’ve gotten three numbers just this week, dude.” Carl says, while shoving a pile of eggs into his mouth, in true Gallagher fashion.

Ian would be grossed out, but he does the same thing mere seconds later, so he’s probably not one to judge.

He doesn’t answer him, just swallows, and asks, “Where’s Debbie?”

Carl shrugs, and takes a more forceful bite from his toast than is necessary. Ian worries about him sometimes, when he lets himself think about it.

He doesn’t let himself think about it often. It never leads anywhere good--it leads places like ‘juvie’ and ‘Breaking News: Teen Arrested for Underground Drug Cartel!’ or possibly even 'Teen Found Dead in Ditch' and that is definitely something Ian would rather _not_ worry over. Ian is pretty sure Carl isn’t stupid enough to do something too dumb, anyway.

Pretty sure.

He's like, mostly sure.

“She’s having a teenage crisis upstairs.”

Ian raises his eyebrows, but doesn’t ask.

He decides it's best if he doesn’t know.

*

Debbie does come down, eventually, and her face is splattered with tiny hints of blush and bronzer and whatever else makeup girls use--Ian doesn’t know, and he doubts he wants to, either--Ian can’t remember when she started wearing makeup, which means it has to have been recently, when he asked Kev to up his hours again. 

“What the hell is on your face?” Ian asks.

“Fiona let me borrow some of her makeup for school.”

Ian should definitely be home more often.

Ian’s going to start being home more often.

“Right,” he answers, dubiously. _"_ Looks nice, Deb," Ian says, because it does. 

"Thanks," Debbie smiles sweetly at him, ever that too-sweet child that Ian remembers from a few years back, the girl who would give him massages after a hard day at work and make cookies with Sheila Jackson when she hadn't come out of her house in too many days. Ian's always thought she was too sweet, too entirely  _good_ for this neighborhood, for _them_.  

He can tell from the way Fiona looks at her sometimes that she feels the same, too.

“Since when do you let her wear makeup?” Ian asks, once Debbie is out of earshot.

“Since she asked me to,” Fiona answers.

“She’s fourteen,” Ian points out. He doesn’t know why the idea of his sister wearing makeup makes him feel uncomfortable, maybe because he doesn't see her as anything other than that little girl, but he knows he definitely doesn't like the thought of her growing up.

“When did she grow up?” Ian asks, looking at Carl and Debbie, who are violently fighting over the last piece of bacon.

Debbie wins.

He doesn't even try to hide the smug smirk that takes over his face when Carl dejectedly glances over at them.

“I don’t know,” Fiona laughs. “I blinked and suddenly she’s fourteen and asking me how to use my makeup.”

Ian sighs. “It’s weird,” he says, and then bites his lip on his next question. “Have you heard from Lip?”

Fiona’s expression goes dark; twisted. Ian doesn’t blame her. Lip--Lip was; _is_ a sore subject.

He fucked off a couple of years ago, right after Ian graduated high school. They haven’t heard from him since. Ian doesn’t talk about it, none of them do, especially not in front of Debbie, who aside from Ian, took Lip’s absence the hardest.

It had been an adjustment, going from having a constant to having, well, nothing, essentially.  

He’s not bitter about it--Fiona is, but that’s warranted, Ian thinks. She never really thought he would leave them, even if the opportunity had risen because if there had been anyone more determined than Fiona to keep their fucked up family alive, it had been Lip. But then Ian woke up one morning to Lip’s bed completely bare, to find the box of joints in Ian’s top drawer of his nightstand missing, to his clothes gone from the dresser. Ian still remembers Debbie standing on the outside of their fence, waiting for Lip to show up with a pack thrown over his shoulder and that signature shit-eating Gallagher smile plastered on his face. He never did, of course, but Ian can see the way her body still coils tightly like a spring whenever the door opens randomly, can see the way her eyes glaze over hopefully when they find one of the spare shirts he hadn't bothered to take with him; he doesn’t say anything about it, but he wants to--at least not anymore. Lip got out.

Ian just wish he had gotten out in a different way.

“No,” she says shortly.

“I figured.”

He doesn’t know why he expects to hear differently, anymore.

*

He corners Mandy outside of the campus library.

She’s sitting on one of their picnic benches, face buried in her psychology textbook, and Ian can remember a time when she wasn’t sure she would even graduate high school. Ian’s always believed in her, as fucking corny as it sounds, because Mandy wasn’t stupid, contrary to popular belief. She was hard-headed and stubborn and fiery, but she wasn’t _dumb_.

It was just that grades were never good in her house. They never mattered.

So, she didn’t try.

Ian understands that, at least. Most people don’t.

“It doesn’t matter how close you get to the book, dumbass, you’re not going to retain the information any easier,” Ian says breezily enough as he collapses next to her.

“Oh, fuck off,” Mandy says, and flips him the bird for good measure. He can’t stop the laugh that bubbles in his chest, doesn’t really want to, either.

They were close when they were teenagers, after Mandy found out about him being all too fond of cock and had offered to be his beard, but they were nothing like they are now. Mandy knows everything about him--about Frank, about the army rejecting him because of some fucking condition that he didn’t even know he _had_ , knows how he still wakes up sometimes in a cold sweat when he can’t shake the images of Lip’s unblinking, cold and battered face staring up at him from a casket.

“Actually going to try and pass a test this time?” Ian asks, taking a cigarette from her pack on the table and lighting it.

Of all the habits Ian was able to shake from his youth, smoking had never been one of them.

It’s not like he minds, though, it keeps his hands busy and stops the scratching at the back of his skull from bothering him so much; it's a distraction. 

Mandy rolls her eyes. “I always pass my tests, jackass.”

And she does.

She hasn’t failed a single test this year, but Ian isn’t the least bit surprised.

“Uh huh,” Ian murmurs around his cigarette. “So, when did your brother get back in town?”

“What?”

“Your brother,” Ian clarifies. “When did Mickey get out of jail?”

“Few weeks ago,” Mandy murmurs, and a weird look comes across her face, one that Ian hasn’t seen in so long he almost forgot her face could move like that.

It looks a lot like hope, but he doesn’t say that, of course. Mandy would punch him for it. Hard.

The Milkovich’s don’t do soft, especially not Mandy.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Ian blurts, before he can stop it.

Ian has never really talked to Mickey, not since they were kids, aside from the odd time Mickey asked-- _demanded_ \--him for a smoke or a lighter, or those times he would come into Kash & Grab, grab jello and pringles off the shelf, shove them into a box and then leave. He never paid for anything, at least not while Ian worked there. 

“Why do you care?”

Ian shrugs. “S’just be nice to know when another violent thug is released from prison.”

Mandy does punch him for that.

 _Hard_.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is a line taken from Harper Lee's _To Kill a Mockingbird_ though I modified it a bit. 
> 
> Feel free to follow me on tumblr:
> 
> noelfisha.tumblr.com


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